To See And To Observe
by LeonaWriter
Summary: Seeing the spirits of the dead is a blessing and a curse that Hakuba Saguru knows all too well.  It sets him apart.  It makes him the go-to guy, whether he likes it or not.  Kuroba Toichi happened to be one such person.  MK, may go on into DC.


To See and to Observe

...

Hakuba Saguru had been able to see the dead from a very young age. It was a gift, or curse, that had been inherited from his mother's side of the family, which was a large part of the reason why he had chosen to stay in England for the greater part of his childhood.

This ability was what had spurred him on to become a detective, a good one, to be able to understand why people did what they did and hopefully lay some of the souls he encountered to rest. It wasn't easy, it was never easy, and he had learned early on to hide what he really felt each time he met one, or encountered a murder. He had become very good at it, in fact. One could not, after all, solve a case properly and objectively when one was emotionally tied to the outcome.

He had made the trip back to Japan when he had heard of the Kaitou Kid, a thief famed for his lack of willing to hurt. The idea had grabbed Saguru's attention like the first signs of sun and warmth after a long winter, having become almost inoculated by then to the horror, the hurt and the feeling of cutting loss that came with murders.

All in all, Kid had both matched and exceeded his expectations – he was a challenge, and had a rare kind of code of honour that, despite what popular literature might say, was rarely found in thieves, let alone criminals of other sorts. Even if he did not seem to have any respect for the dignity of the officers and detectives who chased him.

Kuroba Kaito, however, was just as much of a mystery as the elusive Kid that Saguru strongly suspected him of being. Familiar with all sorts of coping mechanisms used and abused by those who had lost someone close, it hadn't taken much observation to understand that what one saw on the surface was not necessarily the same as what lay underneath. Unfortunately, this did nothing to change the fact that whatever _was_ underneath, the face Kuroba chose to show made him the most obnoxious, irritating, irreverent and interfering person he had ever met.

But still, that hadn't prepared him at all for seeing the transparent form of an older Kuroba with a moustache walking towards him in the street one day, dressed in apparently normal clothes and a solemn expression on his face. The man stopped in front of him, regarding him and looking through him in such a way that made Saguru uneasy for the first time in a very long while about being face to face with a ghost.

And then, the expression was gone, covered up by an easy smile not far off Kuroba's own infamous Poker Face.

"I somehow thought that you would be able to see me, Hakuba-kun."

Saguru nodded slightly, silently, heading off towards a side road less frequented, for privacy and the preservation of dignity. Once there, he bowed shortly enough to seem both respectful to the ghost and not as if he had gone insane to any outsiders who might still be watching.

"Kuroba-san, I presume."

The ghost laughed.

"You would be presuming correctly, then. I trust that's due to Kaito – you're in his class, aren't you?"

Saguru nodded again.

"His and Nakamori Aoko-kun's," he said in a matter of fact way. Then he realised something. "You watch him?"

Kuroba-san inclined his head, a smile on his face.

"With the trouble he gets into? It's a miracle I haven't had to intervene yet."

And that said something. Most ghosts were only able to watch, not do, unable to alter their environments. It took a great amount of sense of self and willpower to be able to do so.

"I quite agree. In case you were not aware, he recently has taken to scaling tall buildings and decorating them with pro-Kid slogans." He raised an eyebrow at the ghost. "You wouldn't happen to be aware of where his fascination with the thief comes from, would you?"

"Me? Oh, no. Not at all."

There was a familiar twinkle in the older man's eye as he said that, however, which caused Saguru to firmly believe otherwise.

"Not that it matters, in any case. I could hardly use the word of one of the dearly departed as undeniable evidence in any of my cases. My reputation as a respectable detective would be ruined," he added with an ironic smirk. "But that aside, I'm sure that there must have been something far more important than the interactions between myself and your son on your mind when you sought me out."

"Oh, no. The opposite, in fact. I'm very interested. In fact, I have a favour to ask of you."

Saguru eyed him warily. A great many of the population of ghosts on Earth generally had unfinished business, which could often be solved simply by complying with their request. A harmless enough thing to do in most cases, if a somewhat challenging one in others, one did have to be aware of the perils of promising to do things one simply could not do.

"And what might that be?"

The ghost put see through hands into the see through pockets of his trousers, expression serious.

"I would like it very much if you could watch out for Kaito."

Saguru stared.

"I wish to inform you that no matter the situation, I would not perform any potentially illegal acts merely for the piece of mind of someone who is already dead," he said bluntly.

The elder Kuroba laughed, and was it just him or was there a hint of nostalgia in that tone? Either way, it made him blink.

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to do anything outside of your morals, Hakuba-kun. Furthermore, I doubt that Kaito would be pleased with me if I did..."

The man trailed off, wearing an expression badly hidden by Poker Face that Saguru had seen so many times before in his lifetime that he closed his eyes and breathed slowly in, then let it out in a sigh.

"I give you my word that if such an occasion arose in which I was able to pass on that you're still here and watching over him, I will do so. Is that satisfactory, Kuroba-san?"

The ghost of Kuroba senior inclined his head, and for a single instant Saguru was certain he could see the man clothed in not an ordinary suit, but a stage performer's outfit in white, not all that dissimilar to the Kaitou Kid's work uniform that was so common nowadays, a top hat placed jauntily on his head as he faded away out of view.

He blinked, and started to head out of the side street and back onto the main route back to home once more, convinced that everything had just become a great deal more complicated than they had been before.

...

AN: Set a very short time before the Blue Birthday heist, so Hakuba is definitely still there, but Kaito hasn't become noticed by Black Organisation or variants thereof as yet.

There may or may not be snippets of later instances where the AUness of this comes into play.

The idea itself was inspired by a Japanese fanart of Toichi meeting a young boy in the street at sunset, who appeared to have blond hair...


End file.
